Pandemic Re-Awakenings offers a multi-level and multi-faceted exploration of a century of remembering, forgetting, and rediscovering the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919, arguably the greatest catastrophe in human history. Twenty-three researchers present original perspectives by critically investigating the hitherto unexplored vicissitudes of memory in the interrelated spheres of personal, communal, medical, and cultural histories in different national and transnational settings across the globe. The volume reveals how, even though the Great Flu was overshadowed by the commemorative culture of the Great War, recollections of the pandemic persisted over time to re-emerge towards the centenary of the 'Spanish' Flu and burst into public consciousness following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The chapters chart historiographical neglect (while acknowledging the often-unnoticed dialogues between scientific and historical discourses), probe silences, and trace vestiges of social
and cultural memories that long remained outside of what was considered collective memory.
Author(s): Guy Beiner
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 419
City: Oxford
Cover
Pandemic Re-Awakenings: The Forgotten and Unforgotten ‘Spanish’ Flu of 1918–1919
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Contents
List of Figures
List of Contributors
Editor’s Note
Preface: History, Memory and the Flu
Introduction: The Great Flu between Remembering and Forgetting
Coming to Terms with the Pandemic
Historiographical Neglect
Overshadowing
Social Forgetting and Cultural Forgetting
Part I: Personal Histories
1: Remembering the ‘Forgotten’ Pandemic: Richard Collier’s Collection of Personal Testimonies
2: Pandemic Death, Response and Memory in Non-European Societies
Memory of the Pandemic
Tropical Africa
The Pacific
Conclusion
3: The Silence of the Survivors: Why Did Survivors of the ‘Spanish’ Flu in South Africa Not Talk about the Epidemic?
4: ‘Above All Else There Was Fear’: Memories of the ‘Spanish’ Flu in São Paulo, Brazil
The ‘Spanish’ Flu in São Paulo
Remembering the Flu
Memories of an Elderly Lady
5: Changing Narratives of ‘That’ Pandemic: Re-Engaging with Oral Histories for the Centenary of the Great Flu in Ireland
Part II: Communal Histories
6: The Overshadowing of the Memory of ‘Spanish’ Flu in Poland
7: ‘When Two Crises Meet Each Other’: Remembering ‘Spanish’ Flu in the Low Countries
‘Spanish’ Flu in the Low Countries
Remembering the Flu in Non-Fiction and Fiction
Forgetting the Heart of Darkness
The Manifold Ways of Forgetting the ‘Spanish’ Flu
8: ‘Remember Me to the Folks’: Memory, the Great War and the 1918–19 Influenza Pandemic in Canada
The Great War and the 1918–19 Influenza Pandemic in Canada
The Pandemic at Kinmel Park
Gunner Sidney Moody’s Letters Home
Letters to Mrs Moody: Remembering a 1918 Flu Victim
Soldier Flu Deaths as War Deaths
9: ‘The Fell Plague of Last Year’: Remembering and Forgetting the 1918 Influenza Pandemic in New Zealand
Oral History
Newspaper Evidence
Remembering
Forgetting
Re-Remembering
10: Representation and Remembrance: The 1918–19 Influenza Epidemic in India
Influenza and the Politics of Colonial Memorialisation
Memory and Nationhood
Influenza and the Crisis of Indian Subsistence
11: ‘The Pneumonic Influenza Is Just Part of My Life’: Fostering Community Histories of the ‘Spanish’ Influenza Pandemic in Australia
Unexpected Traces
A Complicated Afterlife
Forgotten in Ubiquity?
What Is Worth Remembering
Part III: Medical Histories
12: Pandemic Exchanges: Narrating the ‘Spanish’ Flu at the Intersection of Science and History
‘The Virus Writes the Rules’
‘The Sphinx of Epidemic Diseases’
‘The Thief in the Night’
‘The Ferrets Are Sneezing’
‘All Influenza Epidemics Now Are Pandemics’
‘Can It Happen Again?’
‘The Field Has Been Well and Truly Tilled’
‘America’s Forgotten Pandemic’
A Time Capsule Called ‘Lucy’
‘I Had a Little Bird / Its Name Was Enza’
13: The Past, Present and Future of Memory: Medical Histories of the 1918–19 Influenza Epidemic in the United States
Documenting the Experience of 1918–19
Analysing the Experience of 1918–19
Collecting and Preserving the Experience of 1918–19
Remembering 1918–19 in the Digital Age
14: The Ispanka in Historical Context: The 1918 Influenza Epidemic in the Soviet Union
Epidemics in Russia
Conclusion: The Ispanka in Russian and World History
15: ‘Huge but Unknown’: China in the Memory of the 1918–19 Influenza Pandemic
China and the Forgotten Pandemic
Influenza in China
Avian Influenza and the Afterlife of 1918–19
Conclusion: The Geopolitics of Remembrance
Part IV: Cultural Histories
16: Pandemics and Comparative Forgetfulness: The Great Influenza and the Black Death
Oral Histories
The Black Death
17: Between the Great War and the Great Flu: How the Contemporary Avant-Garde Coped with the 1918–19 Influenza Pandemic
The Deceased
The Convalescent
The Affected
The Involved
The Untouched
Conclusion
18: Traces in the Archive of a Great Oblivion: Ibero-American Representations of the ‘Spanish’ Flu
Expressions and Representations of Forgetting During the Pandemic
Pre-Forgetting the Pandemic
Intertextuality and Resignification
‘Cold Cinders’ and ‘Warm Cinders’ in Retrospective Literature
Conclusion
19: The Practices of Social Forgetting: Rewriting, Obscuring and Silencing the 1918 Influenza Epidemic in the United States
Conclusion: Rediscovering the Great Flu between Pre-Forgetting and Post-Forgetting
Afterword: The Great Flu and Modern Memory
Index
